After changing and grabbing a few extra clothes, I found Atlas standing in the living room, re-sheathing his knife and gun. At my entrance, he glanced up and smiled, his eyes sparkling in that after orgasm glow I recognized from the ritual.
“You ready?”
I nodded, grabbed his hand, and we left.
CHAPTER 18
Marta
“So, how’d you two make out?” Wes asked when we got back to the estate. He leaned against the doorjamb to the library, his arms crossed, a smug smile on his pouty lips.
I paused and straightened, trying to figure out how to respond. He already knew, so why would I lie?
Atlas barked a laugh and stepped around me, grabbing onto his brother’s shoulder to give him a shake. “A little on the nose, brother, but I’ll allow it.”
Wes raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“I just…” I didn’t have the words to describe the way I needed Atlas in that moment. On the ride home, I’d tried to make sense of it, but the truth was, I couldn’t.
“What can I say?” Atlas held his hands out to either side. “I’m irresistible.”
Wes rolled his eyes and laughed, playfully hitting his brother in the stomach. “Don’t gloat. You’re hot, but our witch is hotter. If she were desperate enough to fuck you?—”
“We saw the demon,” I cut in, hoping to avoid the heat snaking into my cheeks and down my neck. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. Hell, I’d done way worse before I’d gotten stuck here with them. But the shame of Wes’s FOMO snuck into my heart, and I didn’t want to make it worse.
“What?” That got his attention.
We walked into the library as I explained what happened, making sure to detail it as specifically as I could remember it. “I think she heard me. I think she understood me, and if she did, she’ll get the coven involved. They might be able to pull from their side as we push from this side, and maybe…”
“That’s good,” Wes said. “We’ll keep trying.”
“Wes, I’m sorry. I panicked, thinking the demon must have gotten to Tita. Atlas calmed me down, and it just…escalated.”
“Hey,” Wes said, reaching out to grab my hand and give it a tender, reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. What happens in the liminal, stays in the liminal, right?”
I nodded and pulled him in, rising on my toes to give him a quick kiss. His surprise and delight rattled down to my bones, but before I pulled away, he leaned into my ear.
“Prepare yourself, witch,” he said. “It’s my turn.”
I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make my cunt pulse and shiver. I smiled as I stepped back, and he winked.
“How’d you do?” Atlas said from the table where Wes had spread out his research. “Find anything good?”
“Yeah, actually,” Wes said, walking over to his brother. “I think I found Constance’s death record.”
“What?” I hadn’t been expecting that. “Where?”
“It’s in the coven cemetery back in Scotland,” he said. “But I can’t be sure. Constance was a popular name at the time, and there are at least five others it could be. But look.” He held out a notebook containing a list of names and dates next to them. “Constance Clearwater, date of death 31st of July, 1592. Jonathan Woods, date of death 31st of July, 1592. Xavier Woods, date of death 31st of July 1592. It’s the only entry with a witch and two warriors passing on the same date.”
“Woods,” Atlas said. “They were brothers.”
“Possibly,” Wes added.
“This is twenty years after her last entry in the journal,” I said, skimming my fingers over the letters like touching them would tell me something more.
“Exactly,” Wes said. “If it is her, and those are her two warriors, then they made it. They completed the soul ritual and lived another twenty years before they died together.”
“Cause of death…” I squinted to try to read the words, but they were faded and nearly illegible. “I can’t make it out.”
